Chapter One Hundred Sixteen of Doom
The one hundred sixteenth chapter of Eternal Destiny The Archer's Hunt: The Final Part "Torrin Wood of Diablo," Apollo said as he handed Naga the money. "Impressive, though to be expected from the Mist Hunter himself." CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN OF DOOM Gabilan kept his eyes focused on those two, the human and the hippocampus. For some reason, he didn't know why, he felt there was something important about them. Eventually, Gabilan swam toward them and greeted them with a "Hererere," meaning "hello." The other hippocampus glanced at Gabilan and gave a brief "Herere," or "Hey". Then it turned back to the human. "Howdy," the human said. "How goes it?" The human'', thought Gabilan, is definitely going to be more amicable here. This was only a loose translation of Gabilan's thoughts, but it gets the point across.'' Gabilan responded with "Herererere," meaning "It goes well." Now, Rune, it has just occurred to Gabilan that he should just say the translations for the sake of brevity. The other hippocampus noted the brief conversation and looked at Gabilan again. "Hey," the hippocampus said. "Ricardo is ''my human. Go talk to a different one." Because of the hippocampus's tone, the human, Ricardo, assumed it was'' sarcastic and laughed. "Sorry about Bess here," Ricardo said to Gabilan. "She's actually a lot nicer than she seems. Just not very partial to strangers is all." Bess rolled her eyes and started swimming away, brushing against Ricardo in a gesture meaning "Let's go." "Well, see ya around," he said with a nod, leaving with Bess. The next day, Gabilan ran into Bess again, without Ricardo around. "Hello again," Gabilan said. Bess sighed. "What do you want?" Gabilan shrugged. He hadn't thought that far ahead. "I got a strange feeling from you and Ricardo. I don't know why, but it feels like I'm supposed to stick by you two." "Well, don't," Bess said. "Leave me alone, leave both of us alone. I left the wild hippocampi for a reason. I'm with the humans, with Ricardo, now. So, until you become one of the humans, just back off." Gabilan knew that bit was sarcastic, but he silently accepted her terms. "Until you become one of the humans." He could never, biologically, change himself into a human, but he could still look like one, talk like one, be similar enough to a human that it counted. He started the first step in isolation: sounding like a human. Now, a hippocampus has a very different throat than a human, and a set of gills instead of lungs. The tongue was not meant to make the same sounds as a human tongue. By all logic, there was no way a hippocampus could sound like a human. That logic was the only real obstacle. "Hererere!" Gabilan exclaimed. "Hererere! Herereree!" There. A sound that was higher in pitch than usual and sounded like the long e vowel. It wasn't much, but it was something. No, not just something. Enough. Enough to prove to him that, logic be damned, pardon my language, this was possible. "Herereee! Hreree! Hree!" Just one more motion of his teeth on his bottom lip. "Hree! Heree! FREE!" That was it. Free. An actual English word. A word no hippocampus before him had ever spoken, and a word that perfectly described how he felt at that moment. He shouted it a couple more times just because. He was no longer merely hippocampus. Rather, he was now, to just the slightest degree, human. To move like a human, or, due to the absence of legs, to move like the merfolk. Gabilan swam through the water the way they did, fins below the rest of him rather than behind. "This is really working," he said, in humantongue, though nobody was around. When he next saw Ricardo and Bess, he approached them. "Hello," he said with his newfound skill. "Well, that's new," said an impressed Ricardo. "You can speak English?" "Indeed," Gabilan said. "I figured it-" "Hey, Ricardo!" one of the other humans called out. "Can we get some help over here?" "Sure thing," he called back. "Sorry, man, but we'll have to finish this up another time. Later. C'mon, Bess, let's get goin'." He walked toward the other humans. Bess lingered a bit longer. "You know, the first time you talked to us I also had a feeling about you. A bad one. I figured it was just because I wanted to stay away from the wild hippocampi, but it's clear now that you're not like the others. It was just you personally that I wanted to avoid. So, later." Then she returned to Ricardo's side. By the next few hours it was clear that whatever feeling Gabilan had had of Ricardo and Bess was not going well. There was nothing he could do to get on Bess's good side. Even one of the other wild hippocampi was there with them without trouble. In fact, that other wild hippocampus had gone over to talk to Gabilan at one point. "So," he said. "I hear you can speak English. That true?" "Yes," Gabilan said. "That is true." "Sweet," the other hippocampus said. "That's pretty awesome." "Thank you..." Gabilan paused. "Say, what is that?" The other hippocampus followed Gabilan's gaze to a wall from the side. "Looks like a weak point in the walls. Never seen it before. Whole wall could come down in a minute, tops." "WHAT?!" Gabilan swam straight for the wall with the other hippocampus beside him. When they reached the front of the wall, they pushed the other half-bloods and hippocampi out of the way. The last remaining was a somewhat disoriented Bess. "What's happening?" she asked, having yet to notice the flaw in the wall. Then the wall fell, with Bess beneath it. Sand dispersed through the water. When it had cleared, rubble from the fallen wall was revealed. Beside it was Bess, looking down in tear-stricken awe. And beneath the rubble, Ricardo. He'd seen the wall falling and gone down to save Bess. She had chosen her friend well. "No..." she muttered. "No... No..." Then she swam away. Ricardo was dead. And Bess was gone. So much for that good feeling he'd gotten from the two of them. Links Eternal Destiny Previous Chapter: Chapter One Hundred Fifteen of Doom Next Chapter: Chapter One Hundred Seventeen of Doom Trivia *This chapter was written by DarkCyberWolf on 24 January 2014 and finished 1 February 2014. *Characters met this chapter: Bess, Ricardo Tomoyo *Message from DarkCyberWolf: Sorry for the relatively long time between chapters. *This was the first ED chapter to take more than one day to write. Let's hope it's the last. Category:DarkCyberWolf Category:Eternal Destiny Category:Chapter Page